


Overlap

by thebigbengal



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Body Horror, Explicit Language, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, My Life My Tapes-related, Platonic Relationships, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer-related, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me-Related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12269526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebigbengal/pseuds/thebigbengal
Summary: In the world of the physical and coherent, one died before they could properly meet. In the world of dreams, their lives have intersected since they began.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since time doesn't really exist in the Lodges, I've always wanted to explore the concept of Laura and Cooper meeting one another in their dreams throughout their lives. This utilizes references from Fire Walk With Me, My Life, My Tapes, and The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer while also providing a bit of foreshadowing for season 3 aka The Return. 
> 
> Each of these chapters are really sort of meant to be read as individual pieces that take place in no particular order in a timeline, though threads connecting them are implied.

It’s morning, and Laura’s supposed to be getting ready for school, but she’s almost certain school no longer exists. These curtains are the end of this world, and yet it continues beyond that, wrapping back around and twisting into one another. The halls are snakes eating their own tails. The floor pulls her without reaching out and moves the opposite direction, against her feet. There is no ceiling to follow as there is no roof, as there are no walls.

From her chest, time beats away and slips from her brain before flowing into a river, then drips off a ledge, never seen again. Her legs start to quiver, but she carries on. These legs aren’t truly hers, and they indeed don’t ache since she wasn’t actually walking for hours and hours on end, and these halls can’t possibly go on forever. Like every other hall Laura has walked, they end. An exit will turn up, eventually. She is sure of it.

Approaching the red curtain that divides this stretch of the hall from the next, she splits it down the middle, and a brief swell of air catches her in place. She propels forward down the stretch and repeats the operation.

Some cycles find Laura the power to swivel her feet and part the curtains to either the left or right rather than straightforward. They’d take her through the same halls, but every so often might open to a spacious room. She’s never sure if they’re the same rooms; one has furniture and the other, barren. A statue she swears she has seen in one of her history textbooks materializes in the halls, though usually remains in the room with the lamps, chairs, and end table. It may be the tracing of the chevron floor pattern with her eyes as she wanders that’s making the trick take hold, because she is positive that the statue has shifted in position or grown back its limbs, then lost them again.

She has already asked the obvious questions, both to herself and out loud.

_Where am I? Can I go home? Where is everyone?_

She fiddles around for more questions to fill the silence.

_Is there breakfast? Is it alright to sit in one of those chairs? Are mom and dad worried about me? Maybe I should call them. Is there a phone, here? Does Donna know about this place? Can I bring her sometime?_

As is customary for Laura, no one is around to answer and, even if there were others, they’d leave her still pending. She’d never be able to find them, or them of her, and the halls would tug her away before the words could leave her mouth. It’s only slightly more lonesome than her world beyond these curtains.

Every click of a footstep is hers. Every nasal whistle with each steady inhale and exhale is hers. Every time the curtains part and reveal the other side or the same side is hers, as no one else could be around to do that.

Except…

Those foot-clicks _aren’t_ hers. That breathing _isn’t_ paired with a whistle, therefore it’s not her either, and she _couldn’t_ have parted that curtain wall on account that she hasn’t approached it yet and someone else stands where she'd stand if that action _belonged_ to her.

Tall, slender and pale-faced; black hair messily bordered his forehead, either cheek and draped over his ears. A large, gray sweatshirt hid his minuscule shoulders and a chest and stomach that’d be almost concave. He stood perpendicular to her path with his arm holding the curtain aside; behind him was the furnished room she had just exited. He looked to be a high school boy. Laura would be in high school soon.

 _Maybe_ , she thought, _that's something we could discuss._

A crevice in her throat snatched up the _“Who are you?”_ and her lips hung unlocked. He moved his head to examine the hall, then snapped in place when their eyes met. The floor and curtains grew wider, longer and faster than they ever did for as long as Laura was there, yet they both remained situated. His form’s clarity persisted while every length of ground and barrier swam into their own spaces, diffusing until their structures became entirely fanciful.

The curtain dropped from his arm and the room planted him firmly at the threshold, rigidly in her gaze, and the only part providing signs of life were his eyes, which flicked up and down her figure while hers did the same in return. Frames of a pale head topped with black hair passed through her memory, but their point of origin was unclear.

Eyes now hardened, he stepped past the curtain.

The first syllable finally found its strength to burst free from the crevice and as it crept to Laura's lips, the room, along with the boy, fell away.

A ceiling fan took their place. The clicks of her mother’s high heels progress up the staircase.


	2. Chapter 2

Dale’s mind felt five feet ahead of the rest of him and both parts trudged through the viscid and dimly lit expanse. The velvet walls that encircle and bitterly govern his path swallow the claps of his feet that echo out and trail behind.

A stone rocks in his stomach. When he drives on, it falls forward and jerks him to the floor, spraining his throbbing chest and lungs and dragging his spine inward to meet the naval. When he brings himself up, he’s hammered back and his gut pile-driven into his throat. Before Dale careens off into the darkness, he catches himself and realigns with the floor and the non existent ceiling. His knees waver, then push back quick enough to nearly turn his legs the other way. Everything inside that rattled, creaked and spasmed settles in their respective place; the air can at last manage its way in and out of his lungs. The agony subsides. He’ll endure his course, that is, until the stone is disturbed again.

His bed must be miles away by now, and the kitchen’s distance hardly seems relevant anymore. The thought dawns on him that he may have wandered into the wrong house. Should Dale find a door or window he can stealthily scale out of, he feels compelled to leave some note of apology in case his fumbling wakes up the owner, or left something out of place that would raise concern and suspicions. Then he’d need to navigate his way home and try slipping into his bedroom without alerting mom or dad, though a double barrel shotgun shell to the torso seems desirable over explaining the situation.

Perhaps his mother would understand better. The longer he walks, the more plausible it seems that this could all be another dream. His mother dreams and takes pleasure in sharing them with her son. Hers have birds and open fields.

He wistfully drops his gaze from the hall’s end, _I wish this was one of her dreams._

His initial goal of getting a glass of water for his air-dried mouth has escaped him; now all he wants is the comforter to encapsulate him and absorb whatever muck and noise that’s filled his head, which grows fatter and more awkward with each step. His eyes might pop if he doesn’t rest soon.

A faint touch of the floor with his finger ignites a flurry of needles up through the bone and bury deep inside; they overtake, seizing each joint and muscle, and monopolize on every sensation before stealing them away. Dale meets the floor with a hard, unforgiving **_slam_**. An unseen mass descends on his back and hampers any effort to move.

His heartbeat teases his brain, like the solid tapping of a fingernail on a table. Gradually, they build volume, this time piercing his ear drum, roaring and booming Someone is knocking on his bedroom door. They want in.

_“Don’t let him in, Dale.”_ His mother whispers in his ear.

With renewed stamina, he flips off of his front gets to his feet by pulling himself up the curtains. Following the curtain closely, now grazing it, he scurries off into the next division of the boundless hallway and eagerly skims along its barriers for a potential exit.

Every hall ends the same - a red curtain that, when parted, opens onto the next hall. He’d keep shambling forever down the path if he has to and heed his mother’s warning. Still, the pounding kept up with him. Not once did it sound farther away than it should in relation to Dale’s brisk pace. It's hunting.

The pounding eventually tires out, Dale’s labored breathing fulfilling the emptiness. He’s well assured an exit must be around the corner.

A girl stood just beyond his destination. A soft, round face and blond waves cascading just off shoulder, statuesque in posture and appearance, and neatly dressed for school. She treads along the same curtain wall he clings to and peers behind them.

_If she’s looking for a way out, she won’t find it there._

The girl catches him in sight, and puts her inspection on pause. She tenses in unease at his exhaustion. Drawing a foot forward, she cocks her head and lifts her hand out to him. Something in Dale unhinged his anxiety, and he releases the curtain from his death grip.

A deafening howl envelops the two of them.

The girl evaporated and his mother replaced her at his bedside, her silky hands gently caressing his shoulder. A gap widens in his consciousness, and he struggles closing it with the girl he met in the curtained room, but none of her features can come to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references a dream a young Cooper has near the beginning of My Life, My Tapes (Cooper's "autobiography") in which an unknown, animal-like man tries breaking into his room at night. He informs his mother of this man and she provides him the warning. The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes was written by Scott Frost, Mark Frost's brother. It's currently out of print, but pdfs are available online. I seriously recommend it! It's both hilarious, emotionally devastating, and offers a lot of fascinating insight on Cooper as a character and person.


	3. Chapter 3

_Where did he go? Where could he have gone? Oh, no. Oh, no…_

Laura fondles the rugged forest floor, cautiously edging from root to trunk, and begged for the small, fluffy coat of her cat, Jupiter, who scampered off into the Douglas fir forest’s abyss a forgotten length of time ago. There is nothing beyond what she can immediately sense around her. The world returns when her hand meets the surface or she detects a tiny, secluded meow, then disappears. The strain of combating the ebony shroud too hold; sores grew under her eyes. She was already as good as blind and understood no point in trying anymore, so she shut them.

Jagged twigs and pebbles jammed into her skin and stumbling failures to get upright thrust them deeper. When she reaches down to nurse the wounds, she can feel where they left divots that would turn shades of red, green, blue, and purple over the next few days.

_I hope no one will see them through my stockings. I bet I look like Swiss cheese._

Laura lingered on the subject; she could see classmates giggling at her bruises and tauntingly ask what she did last light. Mom and dad, horrified by the state of her legs, throwing questions to the wind. Bad questions…

_No, I’m just looking for Jupiter. That’s all. He must be so frightened. Why would he run from me like that? Why..._

The trees sway against her fingers. Before, they stood their ground and fought her. Now they weave the cluttered trail with her, thin and fluttering against the casual night time breezes. Their bark turned soft and pliable; it molded in her fist. The metallic jingle of a little bell dashed past her feet. She spins around and scrambles in its direction. The new trees stepped aside and the patchy forest floor evened into a smooth track. The night brightened to a murky gray and vague shapes achieved focus in Laura’s restored vision.

Nonetheless, Jupiter still remained out of reach, and the jingle of his collar bell went away, again. Bright gray fell to dusk, and returned to jet black, pulling the distant figures back into its clutches. The ground unraveled, and the strange trees slumped beside her. She stutters out Jupiter’s name. The leaves rustle in response. 

A haggard sigh slithered up her sweater. Laura felt the dirt sewing her feet down. The roots of the Douglas Firs wriggled up her legs and coiled about her hips, and dragged her down so the soil could devour her bound ankles. Smaller roots sprouted and webbed her up, pulling her every which way and forcing her to contour herself. The trees smothered every orifice, every sense and limb. A horribly familiar claw rose to meet her neck. She tried to wail, only to find her mouth clamped shut, and something burrowed inside, writhing, scraping, and raking away at her.

_I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die. No one even knows I’m here._

Gathering every hint of strength, Laura chomped down on the root. The suffocating mass abandoned liberated Laura and fled.

She wasted not a single moment and gunned downhill, heels skating across plots of leaves. She could almost soar above the treetops. Bony fingers extended from the bark and branches, and made haste to latch on. Her back arched at the slightest touch. A vast, dreadful and nauseating aura stretched out from above and covered her, and poured out through the forest.

Laura knew what it wanted. She had to keep running. Run to home, run to school, run to _anyone_ , run until she dies before it kills her. Or worse.

The trees wanted her, their roots wanted her. The wind howled in thirst for her.

_You can’t have me!_

**_WHATEVER I WANT, I GET, LAURA!_ **

Laura’s flight turned into a brutal tumble. The hill throws her, sending her over barbed stones and choppy strips of gravel, root and grass. Bush branches and stray twigs shred clothing and exposed skin, breaking off in her flesh. Each landing beats her worse and worse, till not a single part of her was left uninjured.

She, at last, slows to a halt with the leveling slope, but not before a final swipe at her cheek and a scorching gash to show for it. Laura lay limp at the foot of a clearing, everything raw and miserably pulsing. The feral moaning in the air above did not register with her. She drifted from stream of thought to the next and faded in between.

_Jupiter’s gone, he didn’t want to stay with me. I hope he wasn’t eaten, and went home. At least, he’ll be cozy and safe. It’ll eat me, instead. It’s so hungry… It’s so hungry for me._

The forest melted away. The grass flattened and the trees turned red and swayed like before. The weight of the darkness relieved and dead quiet hung overhead, until the rhythmic clicking of polished shoes on a hard floor cut through.

Laura flinched and tensed at the sudden warmth that embraced her. After so much pain the forest offered, a soothing cradle felt foreign. Curiously, found no urge to resist, but accepted the warmth; it came almost naturally to her. Peace soaked into each wound and tear, and silenced their cries; arms stretched around and tenderly secured her. The grievous pressure in her chest and head eased; she curled up and allowed her muscles to give way. She floated.

A voice kissed her ear.

_It's alright, it's alright._

A supple, withered hand fell to her cheek, and demonstrated care and strength that must have persisted through many years. Laura adjusts to reach for it, but her fingers find, instead, the fabric of her pillowcase.

A hushed purring emits from the other side of her head. She finds Jupiter snoozing happily. Sunlight peeked through the blinds to reveal her pastel-colored bedroom and, though it welcomed her with assurance that she was safe, the forest's unpleasantness dug it's way up from her gut and pestered her, while the touch of affection slipped from thought, despite her desperation to preserve it.

Mom and dad’s breakfast table conversations sharpened in her ears, all the way from downstairs. With Jupiter snug in her arms, Laura shuffled to the kitchen where mom snuffed out her cigarette and poured herself and dad their cups of coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, Laura's first encounters with BOB occurred at the age of 12 through vivid nightmares taking place in a forest. Laura writes that one of them featured BOB taking her childhood pet cat, Jupiter, and releasing him into the woods. I do recommend picking up The Secret Diary (which is still in print) but, fair warning, it can be a very difficult read. Jennifer Lynch doesn't skimp out on graphic descriptions of sexual activity, drug use, or BOB's rape and abuse of Laura.


	4. Chapter 4

The girl was gone, bled from his vision, and before she could properly impress upon him. The room was empty again and Dale was left alone. He recalled she looked younger than him and seemed startled by his presence, then fazed from space with no warning.

The curtains coerced Dale to put the phenomena to the back of his mind and carry on. And he did.

Red waves crest and fall, and narrow in as he goes, but bisect before they can wash over him. The curtains and floor twist the closer he grows to the non-ending of the hall, then untwist or spin opposite his head when he turns to test the effect. Though the hall has never made a full rotation, the ache in Dale’s skull indicates he may have flipped near constantly since he arrived. Whenever that may have been.

A cavity in his lungs cracked open and caved in, dragging back everything else around it.

Back. Why would he turn back?

_There’s something ahead._

**_GO TO IT_ **

Dale’s neck and torso unraveled from below his chin and slithered off underneath the red. His legs crumbled to ribbons and trailed behind the others; his head darted passed the next room and looped back to his starting point, but facing a different corner of the hall this time and he was unable to find a moment where he decided to change route.

Third dimensions snapped into flat planes, which peeled back, and revealed the sitting room, chairs and statue arranged differently than the last time Dale found them. The black and white currents beneath where his feet should be swept up and around his head, then circled down his throat.

The room sickly heaved at his existence within its space. Black and white, acting as anti-bodies, dug into his chest cavity and rattled in protest to his heartbeat; they snagged flesh and scurried away with their prize. The room’s whispers didn’t need to tell him he was unwanted and at fault for something he knew deep down but couldn't place his finger on.

The tear from his lung stung and swelled, and his feet returned, but fastened to the rippling floors that threatened to climb up and steal more from him. The statue called them to its side without a single word. Black and white threads braided into the gnarled arms and fingers of a tall tree. Almond shaped leaves spun out from the fingertips, and tiny, pale blossoms sprouted in bundles. The tree addressed Dale, leaning his way, and waved toward the statue. At the its marble feet laid something even Dale knew was incredibly wrong for this setting.

A baby, pink, flailing, and filling the room with her wails. She teetered on her side and demanded some sort of rescue, which Dale could not provide, despite his efforts to leap from his own body. A frothing, fanged mouth reached for her stomach, and the creature attached turned to stare through him.

**_I WILL RETURN FOR YOU WHEN I AM FINISHED WITH THIS_ **

Then it made off with the screaming bundle. A shower of ash, shriveled leaves, petals and bark coated the liquefying floor that Dale sank further and further into before the current subdued all stress and pain, and blanketed him.


	5. Chapter 5

Lush blue-green leaves danced above Laura’s spinning head. She ran her hands up and down the trunk as she circled it, and it made a crisp noise like the paper of an old book, or munching on her mother’s “secret recipe” oatmeal cookies she sets out for Sunday sermons. Summer winds played in her hair, and she welcomes it with open arms. Wisps of horse hairlike grass tickled her peach toes and the soles of her calloused feet. 

Specks of amber sunlight dotted the leafy layer’s underside. The dark canopy made for a nice substitute to the night sky in a safer time of day, and a sweet spot between civilization and the forest that rested near by. Owls wouldn’t go hunting till dusk and it would be difficult for anything to hide from her sight in this lighting. However, with this security came the concern of privacy. She was right across from the outskirts of her neighborhood and this street would get busy at lunch time. Anyone could see her out here, like this. As herself. Drinking in the world and all it has to offer. Pleasuring herself, exploring each inch, carefully, and no one else.

**_LIKE A SELFISH WHORE_ **

The tree shuddered and nearly knocked Laura off her feet. 

_ I’m not selfish. I’m not a whore. Leave me alone.  _

**_YOU’RE FUCKING FILTHY_ **

She dug her nails into the bark and continued circling, leaves murmuring amongst themselves and drowning out the sludge that swam in her head. It, instead, swam down and stuck stubbornly to the walls of her stomach; they clumped together and snaked around before they were dragged back into the lining, where they'll wait to emerge again.

The sunlight strengthened past the point of reason to a pained, engulfing blaze that rocked the suburbs violently. Round and round, she swung by the tree trunk determined to keep from flying off. She braced for her anticipated spill that never came, then everything settled. Laura lifted her head once she found her stance, and freed her grasp of the tree. A pair of figures appeared in a distant field she never knew was there until now.

She glanced off the edge of her refuge, a border of light and shadow mocking her curiosity. Once she steps out and into the sun, they'll seize the opportunity and throw her to the abyss. The largest figure did not mock, however, but made a gesture of sympathetic beckoning, which was apparent enough to Laura to quell her doubt and ease her out into the field. Despite the wobbling and waving, these bodies remained fixed and solid as redwoods.

They both shared dark eyes, long noses and raven hair. A long, billowing dress draped off the slender figure and the shorter one sported a striped shirt tucked diligently into belted jeans. A boy and a woman. Mother and son.

Laura had been through her neighborhood dozens of times over: strolling along on a cool Saturday, selling for school fundraisers, babysitting jobs, caroling, and bringing baked goods for new move-ins or simply in the spirit of the holidays. Nearly every face that lived here, she’s been acquainted with on some level, yet these faces escape the memories she filed through. 

_ I guess they’re new, here.  _

Then she hurriedly attempted for the chance at a good first impression, straightening her skirt and sweeping ragged hair into an acceptable style, before realizing that she had left her shoes underneath the Douglas Fir, and stood barefoot before the beautifully put-together woman. Her cheeks bloomed bright red and the churning in her stomach returned, but the woman’s thoughtful smile let her know that she was not about to make any judgments, and lifted her dress to show off her equally bare and dirty feet. The boy, apparently the same age as her, gazed at Laura with wonder, and grinned with just as much the same kindness as his mother. Though the tree was far behind Laura, its security followed her and sheltered the three of them. 

The woman held out both hands, the boy instinctively taking her left, and a comforted Laura taking the right. They turned to the horizon and began their trek.

Laura asked the woman, “Where are we going?”

“Someplace both wonderful and strange.” She replied.

The grass flourished into thick brush that reached the waist and shivered at the slightest touch. Earth stretched beyond logical limit. The neighborhood and the tree vanished into space, which shuffled colors from deep blue to violet to indigo, and finally settling on black, swallowing the sun and clouds, with no stars to offer in return. 

Laura and the boy’s hands were ripped away. They spun in infinity while she stared off, still locked to the ground, and lost her radiant character, replaced by a vacant mask Laura was all too familiar with. The woman looked up, sadness reaching her eyes and moving from her son to Laura. She opened her hands to them once more, but closed in resignation before contact could be made. They clamored for her grip.

_ Wait- _

And she was swept away. The children hung above the fading field, well out of reach. Laura turned to the boy, the only worldly being left to cling to. They grant each other an anchor, and Laura sinks to the earth, amber stars emerging from the canopy. 


	6. Chapter 6

Dale had only known this feeling a few times before, but never this intense. His body, an empty shell, and filling with water and light, taking him lower and lower beneath the billowing waves. The terrible weight that clogged his head and throat was removed with a swift motion of something he couldn’t perceive. The battle for air became a submission to the flood that crashed over, and the blazing wound on his stomach, gifted by a pair of enormous jaws, poured out all of the remaining pain and worry, replacing it with the water’s numbness. His entire being swelled with nothing. He wept away memories, regrets, loves and fears, and watched them bubble up to the surface as blood and oil, then disperse into candle light.

The consequences of how and why Dale was there meant as much as those little flames soaring into the black sky. There was no beginning, middle or end. No outside or in. No “this” or “that”. No Dale Cooper, the agent, the son, the brother, the lover, the friend, or the abomination. He could drift, fly, sink, erode into dust, evaporate under the hot sun, then pelt the Earth as summer rain. He’d feed saplings of rejuvenating forests, weary animals during their long migrations, babbling brooks down rocky mountsides, and rejoin with the ocean where he began and will start again. He’d been knocked loose of his brittle, hideous husk, and could grow out into something useful, beautiful, and all-encompassing.

And he could feel it already taking shape.

A transformation unlike anything ever conceived and witnessed, a new beginning, a new vitality, unhinged from all that he was and faced. It didn’t matter what he had seen and done, the damage he had caused. None of that mattered. A seed, from where and when he couldn’t know, in the bite’s bloodied holes burst and thrived, birthing clutches of blossoms and vines that climbed up their old vessel, teaming with blessed heat and energy. A stunning bevy of stars assembled from the new growth’s rays. They head for the surface, as part of the process to expand and become something even greater. _He_ would become something greater.

A hand came down and cut the seed out, taking the light with it.

 

_No…_

 

Pain. There was pain, again. A mortal concept. Memories. The panic, the misery, the loss. What had he lost? What had he let loose to the beast that buried its jaws into his gut and mashed his lungs, like a fist crushing an ant?

His body fought the water, retching, convulsing, demanding for the air he’d effortlessly surrendered only moments ago. Blood rushed back under his skin and spat from his wound and mouth. Fingers wrapped around his wrists and ankles, then pulled, making way for the surface, but that’s not what he wanted. He wanted to stay, to be let go, to sail beyond the stars. Beyond himself.

Another set of hands reached around him, but instead of hauling him alongside the others, they simply held on, resting his head, snug in their grasp, against a soft chest, and soothed him with its heart murmuring sweet lullabies. Silken-lace lips kissed his temple; a surge of warmth shut out the bleeding pain of the bite. Air came closer and closer. Dale stopped fighting, and he accepted that this was how it would be. A wisping voice, lighter than feathers, swept over his head.

 

_I will be waiting, here, for you._

 

A velvet hand took his, and together, laid their palms over the wound, where the vibrant energy briefly returned. The voice spoke again.

 

_This is what you are. You will have this again._

 

Its message was lost on him as he breached the water’s surface.

Black sky. Violet sky. Indigo. Blue.

White.

A white ceiling.

The hissing of his own mechanic breathing and electronic heartbeat hit his ears. The itch of a silicon tube forcing air up and down his esophagus. Muffled chatter in the next room over. Heavy blankets. A spongy pillow. Antiseptic. The stinging of fluorescent lights.

The warm touch remained, but as frail, wrinkled fingers attached to an old man, his father, who slept in a cushioned chair by the hospital bedside. Pain rose from the sutured and bandaged wound, but dulled enough to keep him from fidgeting his whole torso, though he rolled his head from side to side, with all his might, in protest of his occupation in that room. The tube jittered, provoking him to fuss and moan through the gag, and the drugs repressed all other movements beyond a tiny strain in his arms and legs.   

No blossoms, no stars, just dense oil and blood burdening his every joint and muscle. Just his body, his mind, and what was taken from him. What he _let_ be taken from him. He could remember, again. The seed had died within him, as well as someone else’s light.

 

_Caroline…_

 

He missed the water.

 

_Take me back._


	7. Chapter 7

This wasn’t her home anymore, only parts of it were. Microcosms, frames from months ago, some even years, bits of tile and furniture scattered at random intervals. The house she fell asleep in had morphed into a Frankenstein of other homes; floors, hallways, ceilings, stairwells, and lamps, glitching and ripping into one another, with no end and no beginning. Rooms extended past the reasonable limits of the house, plummeted deep within the Earth, and opened to the kitchen that sat at a different angle every time you blinked.

Every combination of doors, halls and stairs took Laura someplace different, but never outside, even if she leaped out of stone and wooden windows or beat down the glass front door. Life went on in the outside world. School friends passing by, laughing amongst themselves, families on weekend picnics, and neighbors greeting one another as they picked up their mail. She spotted Donna and James holding hands, Bobby and Shelly Johnson riding off in their car, Audrey Horne, Mike, Leo, Jaques, Ronette, all walking along like she wasn’t banging on the window and crying for them to hear her. The living room became a basement, and Laura would have to fight up at least twenty flights of stairs of eleven different styles and building materials before making it back to the front window, looking out, and finding a black canvas. 

The oscillating drone of a ceiling fan swam in Laura’s ears, but there wasn’t one in sight throughout the whole labyrinth. It pounded like a sledgehammer on her head, and no tightly pressed hands, or laced pillows, or roaring screams could suffocate it. 

Nothing sat still in her vision. Some speck of an object moving just off to the side of her eye constantly nagged her, then disappeared into another part of the house to taunt her some more. Sightings of a leg, a hand, a lock of hair, or a coat floating by. They teased her clothes and slammed a door shut behind her. No amount of “Go away!” or “Please, stop!” could appease them. When Laura entered the kitchen, it was always just as a party had abandoned the table, food cluttering the floor and counters, leaving her to clean up, or else her mother and father will likely yell at her. When the living room returned, there were echoes of feet clobbering down the nearby hall, and voices giggling and shushing one another to keep quiet, otherwise she’ll hear and they’ll be caught. 

She was an avoided stranger in a house she didn’t own anymore. 

Tears formed into puddles under her knees, then seeped into the floorboards, soaking the basement where she found herself drowning. Shrill pleas resonated in the chandeliers and light bulbs, ruining their circuitry and pulling the whole of the house into darkness. One foot at a time, hands brushing the walls, Laura crawled across the floor and found a large switch, not something that would be in a suburban home, but a factory. Electricity saturated the walls, sparking the bulbs back to life, and a little more intense than to her liking. 

The house returned to view, but different, now. Instead of a twisting room, there stood a long, baren hallway, which broke up, plank by plank, into a dreary forest, barely illuminated by the already failing lights behind her. Towering, winding pines pierced the starless sky, their roots braiding through soil, and into convoluted knots. Laura waited and listened for the flap of a bird’s wings, deer and racoons rustling through brush, or light breezes teasing leaves, but nothing could be heard beyond the house’s electric hum. She stood at the threshold, rocking on the balls of her feet. Whimpers creeped out, and the forest drank them up.

A gust of wind nearly pushed her to the ground. She turned and looked up to the roof. A large owl loomed overhead. Pupiless eyes like bright, full moons, ebony feathers coating a slick, long body, a neck that could stretch and twist with the ease of rubber, and crimping, thorned talons that had ripped the shingles from the rafters. It beamed at her, a shivering dot in its vision. 

Laura had dreamt of owls before,  _ big  _ owls, ones that glared like they knew and saw too much of her, and held secrets they could spill to whoever passes The Log Lady’s words hung overhead, from the time she spoke with her about dreams and what truths they could reveal if only one has the strength to keep searching. 

 

_ “Things are not what they seem.”  _

 

_ Not what they seem…  _

 

She gulped down cold air, folded her arms, and hunched her shoulders, shrinking even deeper in the owl’s sight. Laura felt like a mouse, prepared to be made into dinner.

 

_ Who are you? _

 

It lowered its head, eyes still glowing, but remained where it sat. His stare wasn’t something accusatory, she’d thought, or she at least didn’t feel like she was on trial. The owl was not a judge, but possibly a spectator, a watchman to her struggle. She didn’t like that idea very much, either.

 

_ Do I know you?  _

 

A long pause, long enough for the Earth to freeze to death, then replenish its soil and breath anew. The black winged column swayed side to side, as if examining her for anything out of place. Her guard gradually fell the longer she stood there, alive and not scooped up in its talons. 

 

_ Maybe, he’s just visiting. _

 

She placed one foot back, ready to turn heal and run incase he felt a quick snack was in order before taking off. 

The owl slipped forward on the inclining roof, one wing and foot in front of the other, carefully, and trying not to startle her at his sudden movement. A miscalculation in the steepness of the slope caused him to skid clumsily, and scratch up more of the shingles. He looked uncomfortable in his own feathers, or even badly injured. Laura stumbled back, awaiting the jab of a sharp beak, but instead the bird’s ominous mask fully dissolved as he landed before her feet. 

As he craned his neck to lift his head, which appeared far too heavy for his body, she noticed a flash of mourning under those eyes. A black liquid dripped from its feathers and onto her outreached arms. Oil. It was slathered all over the creature. He inched forward, blanketing Laura under his wings. The faint impression of a person, thin and bony, pulled her inward. It felt strangely cozy, and more like a home than the rickety, disfigured house she had escaped from. 

A guttural groan emerged from behind the trees. Beats of paws on wood and dirt, then sounds of wet thrashing and sawing through flesh. A scream. A  _ human _ scream. Oily strips of tissue strewn about, feathers scattered over Laura’s curled-up body, and blood pooling beside her. She carefully turned over to check the bird, who lay still and barely breathing while a blackened beast gnawed on his ribs. She flexed her arm, reaching for the tip of his torn up wing, which began to look like fingers. The beast cracked bone in its teeth, and quirked its head up to catch her in place. She shrieked as it dragged her back inside of the house.


End file.
